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UK Female Sci-Fi Viewers Now Outnumber Males

mosel-saar-ruwer writes "The UK Telegraph is reporting that, due to the popularity of Buffy, Lara Croft, and Xena, female sci-fi viewers now outnumber males, at 51%-49%. From the article: 'People have an impression of sci-fi fans being small men who sit in the dark watching Star Trek but it's not like that now ... There has been an increase in positive female role models, whereas in Star Trek, all the women were either aliens or wore short skirts.'"

11 of 440 comments (clear)

  1. yet some networks want the stereotypes to stay by thepotoo · · Score: 4, Informative
    Anyone ever heard of Firefly?


    Thought so, thanks to their recent bout of slashvertising.

    Joss (IIRC, maybe it was Tim) said that one of the main reasons that Fox axed Firefly was that (and I paraphrase here) the women were "too strong" and the men were "too weak".

    Just a cool little factoid for y'all. I'd bet that Firefly did at at least a little bit to help bring in female viewers (the women I've showed it to think that most of the men are pretty good looking). Haven't watched much Sci-fi apart from that and BSG, but I can safely say that my sister watches BSG solely because she likes Lee Adama.

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  2. Its True! by wizzdude · · Score: 4, Informative

    I recently started uni and from what I have seen here, girls are far more into sci-fi and fantasy than boys. I've even got two girls who regularly come to watch SG1 with me and another who is lending me her Firefly boxset in exchange for my BSG.

    Good ol' blighty.

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  3. Re:First to defend Gene Roddenberry by nmb3000 · · Score: 5, Informative

    There actually is a shot somewhere early in the series with a man wearing one of those skirts.

    You can see it here.

    Yeah, I think I'm glad they dumped those. What's too bad is they never refer to them later in the series. Why not take a jab at themselves for a laugh? For example when Riker makes a comment to Picard about how he hates the dress uniform, Picard could reply that, "at least he didn't have to wear those awful skirts."

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  4. Drama? by bariumLanthanide · · Score: 2, Informative

    Has anyone else also noticed the increase in personal drama and more plots that are focused on emotion and intra-crew arguments in all of the current so-called "Science"-fiction TV shows?

    Most of them are like soap operas now, perhaps there is a relationship...

  5. Re:Except by fyngyrz · · Score: 4, Informative
    Star Trek is actual science fiction.

    Technically, Star Trek was fantasy. This is because the plot line contains multiple elements of plot-critical fantasy, on purpose — viewers spent years pointing out that the Enterprise would not "whoosh" as it went by a viewpoint in space, that there is no science behind warp drive, that there are no nerve pathways in the neck that would allow Spock to drop humans (not to mention aliens) right and left, and so on.

    Frankly, I can think of very few honest SF efforts on either video or film. It seems that as soon as Hollywood gets involved, the whole concept of SF flies right out the window. On fairy wings, no less.

    It's that whole science thing. Of course, this is a nation that apparently wants to put "Intelligent Design" into our schools and is led by an extremely superstitious man, so the surprise level is pretty low here. As a nation, we're not very aware of what science is, much less being able to discern what extrapolation from current science might be reasonably considered legitimate.

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  6. Voyager? by Anubis350 · · Score: 2, Informative

    "whereas in Star Trek, all the women were either aliens or wore short skirts."

    Captain Janeway? Say what you want, that character had more balls than Kirk, Picard, and Archer put together!

    And I really don't think she wouldve allowed herself to be caught dead in a mini-skirt (though since I havent seen every episode of voyager I could be wrong on that one).

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  7. I can't believe... by PFritz21 · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...that anyone hasn't mentioned http://www.sg1archive.com/bios/at.shtmlUSAF Lt. Col. Samantha Carter, Ph. D.

  8. Re:Short Skirts by Robocoastie · · Score: 2, Informative

    add in Charmed and that %'age would probably increase. Then this season there's Threshold which has a female as the lead, Invasion which has several females as main characters of varying ages and Surface which also has a female (super-hot Lake Bell) as the lead.

  9. Re:Short skirts you say? by Andy+Gardner · · Score: 2, Informative
    Also, don't forget 'unnamed male crewmember'.

    *shudder*

  10. Re:Ahh.. by ViperG · · Score: 2, Informative

    RTFA

    The article explains that the ratings for the SCI-FI channel, not just all SCI-FI, but the SCI-FI channel has the higher female audience.

    Regardless of whats on the sci-fi channel, my most means it should have a higher male audience. But it doesn't, because of some of the shows.

    It's not a big deal really, so I dunno what all the fuss is about. Yeah I would agree, the sci fi channel should be male dominent. Who would of guessed.

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  11. Re:Ahh.. by japhmi · · Score: 2, Informative

    Yes there is; there's no way to get to other planets in other solarsystems without being years older when you get there. Sure, there time dilation, but that doesn't have the effect you think it has. Einstein got thrown out the window as soon as they reached another solar system and weren't years older.

    The trip from Earth to the current 'verse' was generations before Firefly. There is NO FTL travel in Firefly.

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